Happy Holidays!

Today my summer holidays started in earnest - with a trip to the dentist! It was so satisfying setting up my 'out of office' reply for my work email. I am on holiday until the 1st September, and not before time. While it was my choice to save my trips away until the end of the summer, I feel like I have been excited about going away for ages. The weekend has a lot of treats in store. Tomorrow is the first rugby match of the season - a friendly game between Edinburgh and Wasps. Danielle is coming down from St Andrews and we're going to spend the afternoon swooning over fit rugby players. In the evening I'm going to take Danielle to her first ever Fringe show. We're going to see Ed Byrne. I've admired him for a while, especially now that he's made the big-time regularly appearing on Richard and Judy! All joking aside, he's got a fantastic reputation and his ticket prices are above the average, ergo he MUST be good.

On Tuesday I'm finally leaving the country for a while and visiting my second home...Germany. I'm heading over there with Mark and we're going to meet up with Alasdair and Clare while we're out there. Alasdair has already booked us a table at the quirky restaurant where you eat in darkness. I'm very excited about that! It was my only touristy request for this trip, given that I've been to Berlin twice before.



To many, coming home from their summer break would be the anti-climax to their summer. Not me! Just yesterday I received a phone call from the nice man at Mazda to say that they've found me a green car (for quite some time the prospect of a 'spirited green' Mazda 2 was in jeopardy). What's more, it may even be the case that I'll get to collect it on September 1st!! Another day off work may beckon, just so that I can acquaint myself with my new acquisition...! Mal sehen.

Over the past few weeks I think I've added a crazy 10 'new' DVDs to my ever-growing film collection. The reason for new being in inverted commas being that three of my most recent purchases were Mrs Doubtfire, Dirty Dancing and Titanic - nothing new about those films! I really must discipline myself when I visit Tesco or HMV, but the lure of offers or the enpowerment of clubcard points always mean that I succumb to buying more. Having said that, I can somehow justify my binge-buying by adding that no DVD gathers dust for long. These past few days I have watched about five DVDs just because evening tele has been so rubbish! In fact, as I write, I am watching Dirty Dancing for the second time since I bought it on Tuesday!

In need of a holiday

It's now been a couple of weeks since the Nats took control of Glasgow East and still I find myself catching up on my sleep. Work levels in the office have risen, the flat, suffering from neglect, needs cleaned, and, most urgently, I need some clean clothes! It is a fierce combination but by the end of August I pledge to have kept on top of everything...well, in truth I'll be bailing out and holidaying in Berlin.

The news story of the month so far is that I said a sad farewell to my loyal Clio. After nine years at my mercy, it was decided she should move on. I was sad to see her go but I am comforted by the prospect of a new car - already christened Kermit. Unfortunately, due to my wacky taste in colour, I am having to wait for Kermit for a few months, but once he arrives I'm sure he'll quickly fill Clio's shoes. In the meantime I'm reliant on my bike and my parents taking some spontaneous holidays (so I can pinch the Volvo). I think after two months this lifestyle will wear off - how am I meant to carry £40 worth of shopping on my handlebars?! To make matters worse the weather has not been being very kind so I have been forced to subject myself to public transport, which in Edinburgh, during the festival, at the mercy of the Council's ad hoc roadworks plans, is somewhat treacherous.

I'm learning Polish at the moment. It's testing me greatly. I'm doing the whole CD 'parrot' effort - at times it can be comedy, at others just down right unpronouncable! Hopefully, by the time I head over to Krakow in September I'll at least be able to string some sentences together.

So at the moment it's festival time in Edinburgh. The town is heaving. I trekked along the Royal Mile yesterday and just felt like a t-shirt saying 'I'm a Local' would have been really beneficial. My destination was the Fringe ticket office. Never again am I going to subject myself to that queue - it was intolerable. Trying to be as friendly as possible I was declining every person offering me bits of paper. In the interests of cutting out the middle-man I decided they'd be just as effective at binning them as I would be. After about ten minutes in the queue a man claiming to be an act on the Fringe approached me with his flyer and I again, in as nice a manner as I could muster, told him to keep it. What was different about this occasion, however, was that guy started publicly mocking me as I stood there - needless to say he was English and the best tack he could take was that I was Scottish and clearly entering the spirit of the Fringe. Bloody English!

That incident aside, I've been really enjoying the Fringe this year. I've already seen Jason Byrne and I have a few shows lined up for this week. I tried to drum up some enthusiasm for heading to the Spiegel Tent with some mates from school on Friday but, somehow, I found myself instead spending most of the evening in an old man's bar in Tollcross - I hate it when that happens! For the first time, this year I will be rounding the Festival off with swanky tickets for the fireworks. I'm really excited about that and I'm taking my mum with me - she's never seen the fireworks from Princes Street Gardens before, nevermind sitting in front of the orchestra.